DEMAND FOR LUMBER. 347 



twenty-five years would liave almost stripped Europe of her last 

 remaining tree fit for these uses.* 



The consumption in Norway is about the same. — AsbjOrnsen, Om et ordnet 

 Skovbrug. Appendix, 1858. 



Evergreen trees are thoughtlessly destroyed in immense numbers in the 

 United States for the purpose of decoration of churches and on other festive 

 occasions. The New York city papers reported that 113,000 young evergreen 

 trees, besides 20,000 yards of small branches twisted into festoons, were sold 

 in the markets of that city, for this use, at Christmas, in 18t)9. At the Cin- 

 cinnati Industrial Exhibition of 1872, three miles of evergreen festoons were 

 hung upon the beams and rafters of the " Floral Hall." I have known thrifty 

 young groves of evergreen of considerable extent completely destroyed in this 

 reckless way. 



Important statistics on the consumption and supply of wood in the United 

 States will be found in a valuable paper by the Rev. Frederick Starr, Jr., in 

 the Transactions of tlie Agricultural Society for . 



Of course, there is a vast consumption of ligneous material for all these uses 

 in Europe, but it is greatly less than at earlier periods. The waste of wood 

 in European carpentry was formerly enormous, the beams of houses being 

 both larger and more numerous than permanence or stability required. In 

 examining the construction of the houses occupied by the eighty families 

 which inhabit the village of Faucigny, in Savoy, in 1854, the forest inspector 

 found that fifty thousand trees had been employed in building them. The 

 builders " seemed," says Hudry-Menos, " to have tried to solve the problem 

 of piling upon the walls the largest quantity of timber possible vdthout crush- 

 ing i\i&YQ.."^-Revue des Deux Mondes, 1st June, 1864, p. 601. 



European statistics present comparatively few facts on this subject, of special 

 interest to American readers, but it is worth noting that France employs 1,500,- 

 000 cubic feet of oak per year for brandy and wine casks, which is about half 

 her annual consumption of that material ; and it is not a wholly insignificant fact 

 that, according to Rentzsch, the quantity of wood used in parts of Germany 

 for small carvings and for children's toys is so large, that the export of such 

 objects from the town of Sonneberg alone, amounted, in 1853, to 60,000 cent- 

 ner, or three thousand tons' weight. — Der Wald, p. 68. 



In an article in the Revue des Eaux et Forets for November, 1868, it is stated 

 that 200,000 dozens of drums for boys are manufactured per month in Paris. 

 This is equivalent to 28,800,000 per year, for which 56,000,000 drumsticks are 

 required, and the writer supposes that the annual growth of 50,000 acres of 

 woodland would not more than supply the material. In the same article the 

 consumption of matches in France is given at 7,200,000,000, and the quantity of 

 lumber annually required for this manufacture is computed at 80,000 steres, 

 or cubic metres — evidently an erroneous calculation. 



* Besides the substitution of iron for wood, a great saving of consumption 

 of this latter material has been effected by the revival of ancient methods of 

 increasing its durability, and the invention of new processes for the same pur- 

 pose. The most effectual preservative yet discovered for wood employed on 

 land, is sulphate of copper, a solution of which is introduced into the pores of 



